Marconi's Pizza · Friday, 7:42 PM

The phone is ringing.Everybody’s hands are full.

This is what happens next when PizzaFlow answers it.

A neighbourhood pizzeria counter in the evening: a corded telephone on the wall, a stack of menus, a till, folded boxes and the kitchen doorway behind. Nobody is standing at it.

Ninety seconds, start to finish. No hold music, no “press one for orders”.

Not yet. We would rather leave this button switched off than put up a recording we staged. A real one is being made. Until it is here, the call is written out below, and every line in the right hand column is something the assistant actually does.

TimeSaidWhat the system didWhat was said, and what the system did

0:00

incoming call · +1 916 ··· ····

0:04Assistant

Thanks for calling Marconi's, I'm the AI assistant and I take notes as we go. Pickup or delivery?

answered in 4 s
menu loaded · 34 items
hours checked · open

0:09Caller

Delivery. Can I get a large pepperoni?

0:14Assistant

Large pepperoni, eighteen fifty. Anything else?

lookup_menu "pepperoni"
add_item · 1 × Large Pepperoni
$18.50 from Marconi's menu

0:19Caller

Do you do garlic bread?

0:22Assistant

We do, five fifty for six knots with marinara.

lookup_menu "garlic bread"
1 match · Garlic Knots (6)

Both of those prices came off Marconi's own menu a fraction of a second before they were said. The assistant cannot quote a price or an item your menu did not give it, because our code looks your prices up and hands it the sentence to say. There is nothing left for it to invent.

0:31Caller

Actually, make that two. Two large pepperoni.

0:34Assistant

Two large pepperoni, that's thirty-seven. Anything to drink?

change_item · qty 1 → 2
order now $37.00 + $5.50

That is the order. Now it needs to know where it is going.

0:34 · 2 × Large Pepperoni · 1 × Garlic Knots (6) · $42.50 so far

0:41Assistant

Can I get a first name for the order?

name still not recorded

0:44Caller

Dana.

0:46Assistant

And a good callback number?

set_customer · name: Dana

0:52Caller

Nine one six, five five five, oh one four two.

0:56Assistant

Nine one six, five five five, oh one four two. And the address?

set_customer · phone saved
read back to confirm

1:04Caller

Fourteen Oak Street, apartment two.

1:08Assistant

Got it, about forty minutes. There's a three dollar delivery fee.

address checked · 1.3 miles
inside the 3.7 mile radius
delivery fee $3.00 applied

It read the number back before saving it, because caller ID is often wrong on a forwarded line. And it checked the address against your delivery area before it promised a time. Telling somebody forty minutes and then not turning up is worse than saying no at the start.

What it said

“Two large pepperoni, six garlic knots, forty two fifty before tax, delivery to fourteen Oak Street, about forty minutes.”

What the shop has

2 × Large Pepperoni: $37.00
1 × Garlic Knots (6): $5.50
Items: $42.50
Delivery: $3.00
Before tax: $45.50

Dana · 14 Oak Street, Apt 2

The two columns match because the assistant reads the order back off the ticket, rather than off what it remembers saying.

1:22Assistant

Order forty two, ready around eight twenty. Thanks Dana.

confirm_order · #42
order written

1:26

call ended · 1 min 26 s

Ninety seconds after the phone rang, the kitchen has the order.

Nobody stopped what they were doing.

A kitchen order rail with paper slips clipped along it in a row, seen straight on.

That is the real board, not a screenshot of one. It is the same screen a kitchen taps on its tablet, with one Friday evening loaded onto it.

New

2×Large Pepperoni
1×Garlic Knots (6)

14 Oak Street, Apt 2

Preparing

1×Medium Margherita
1×Caesar Salad

1×Large Hawaiian
2×Garlic Knots (6)

9 Almond Court

Ready

1×Large Four Cheese

Every call is written down too, so you can read exactly what was said.

What it costs.

What each PizzaFlow plan costs a month, how many shops it covers and how many calls it includes.
Plan	Per month	Shops	Calls a month
Starter	$199	1	200
Growth	$499	5	750
Scale	$999	20	2,000
Enterprise is priced per business rather than off a table. Talk to us.

Past your allowance, every call the assistant answers is $1.00. It is added to your next monthly payment as a second line, you are emailed at eighty percent and again at a hundred, and you set a ceiling we cannot charge you past. There is no setup fee, no per-order fee and no cut of what your customers spend.

The whole table, what a busy month costs, and the fourteen day refund

Do I have to change my number?

No. Keep the number that is on your menus and your boxes and your signage. You forward it to the number we give you, which takes about five minutes with your phone company, and you can undo it in the same five minutes if you ever want to.

What happens if it gets something wrong?

Every call is written down, and any call where something went sideways is flagged for you to read. It reads the whole order back before placing it. And it can never invent a price or an item, because it can only say what your menu gave it. When it does not know, it puts the caller through to you instead of guessing.

What about when I'm closed, or slammed?

It knows your hours and it will not take an order you cannot make. During a rush it just keeps answering, however many people call at once. That is the entire point.

Let it answer your next call.

Get started

Signing up is free. You only pay when you are ready to put your shop on the phone.